Laverne Cox Lands a Much-Deserved Cover

Remember when Laverne Cox didn't make TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World list and people were rightfully mad? (She'd placed fifth in the online poll.) This is better news: Cox is now the magazine's cover girl. (The cover is not a response to the backlash, though, a TIME spokesperson told Buzzfeed; it has been in the works for months.)

The issue, which features a story about the growing transgender rights movement, is on stands June 9; a Q&A with Cox is online now. Choice excerpt:

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"I was in sixth grade and I was going through puberty. During puberty, the attraction for other boys got really strong. And I learned in church that was a sin. I imagined that my grandmother was looking down on me and that she knew what I was thinking, because she's in heaven. I just imagined that I was disappointing her and it just was devastating for me. So I went to the medicine cabinet and got a bottle of pills. And took them. And swallowed them. And went to sleep, hoping not to wake up. And I did wake up, with a really bad stomachache. I don't remember what the pills were. Whatever it was, I thought that they would kill me but they didn't."